Kuhn 8: Paradigms as exemplars
Feb. 18th, 2009 07:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koganbotin much of the book the term "paradigm" is used in two different senses. On the one hand, it stands for the entire constellations of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community. On the other, it denotes one sort of element in that constellation, the concrete puzzle-solutions which, employed as models or examples, can replace explicit rules as a basis for the solution of the remaining puzzles of normal science.
--Thomas S. Kuhn, "Postscript - 1969" in The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions Second Edition, Enlarged, p. 175.
OK. Start discussing, start posting comments on this, in light of what you read in "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" Except I've got a few points of my own to make, and I've got a specific question in bold, below, if you're wondering where to start.
Minor point: when Kuhn says "employed as models or examples" here, he's treating the words "models" and "examples" as near synonyms, despite his also using the word "model," both later on in this "Postscript" (p. 184) and in the piece "Second Thoughts On Paradigms," in a specific sense as a different element in the constellation - different from "example," that is. I talked about that other use over here, and if you didn't see what I wrote or you want to refresh your memory, you should go look. Not that the words "models" and "examples" are generally synonymous, but in the above passage they modify each other, so that when Kuhn talks about examples he's talking about those examples - which he's now calling "exemplars" - that are used as models (as opposed to examples used as illustrations or for clarification), and by model here he means "an example you try to follow" (rather than, e.g., a useful analogy or simile such as "electric resistance is like the flow of water in pipes," this sort of useful analogy being the other sort of "model" that I've mentioned in the previous two sentences). To confuse things further, in "Second Thoughts on Paradigms," in which he distinguishes between "models" and "exemplars," he uses the verb "model" to say what it is that scientists do with exemplars, and generally throughout his essays when he uses the word "model" in its verb form he's doing exactly this, saying what it is that scientists do with exemplars - e.g., that they model their subsequent puzzle-solutions on paradigms i.e. exemplars, which are concrete puzzle solutions.
Next point: OK, and what's a paradigm in its narrow use as "exemplar"? Well, actually, this is a definition right here. An exemplar is "a concrete puzzle-solution employed as a model or an example." But what about the rest of that sentence?
Crucial point: Kuhn says exemplars "can replace explicit rules." Now this could be confusing. It could be interpreted as saying, "A science can have a set of explicit rules, so a function of an exemplar is to come along and replace some of these rules; therefore, when scientists start employing an exemplar, it replaces their practice of following an explicit rule or rules that they'd formerly employed." But this is very much NOT what Kuhn means. Too bad my time machine is broken, or I'd go back and make him rewrite his sentence. What he actually means is that scientists use exemplars, whereas some philosophers had mistakenly argued that scientists used rules. So what Kuhn is saying is that in understanding what scientists do - how they learn to practice a particular science or subscience, and then how they actually engage in the science - we need to replace the idea that scientists learn and follow rules with the idea that they learn and employ paradigms - "paradigms" in the sense of "exemplars," i.e., concrete puzzle-solutions etc. (What I've just written is a bit simplistic, since Kuhn doesn't actually believe that there are no rules or definitions in science, but rather that some useful rules of thumb come along after you've learned to use the paradigms, and that paradigms are the basic means with which scientists make sense of their definitions.)
This is why Kuhn first began using the term "paradigm": to explain how scientists are taught and what they do, and to work out what it is that scientists within a discipline do share if they don't share rules on how to proceed.
So, Kuhn thinks it's crucial to distinguish between rules and paradigms.
A question for you: What is the difference between a rule and a paradigm (in the sense of "exemplar")? I don't think it's altogether obvious what is meant by "rule" or what the difference is between following a rule and being guided by a model, but I think Kuhn is right to try to make the distinction. And over the next several days I'll be posting some passages from Kuhn that may be useful in this regard. E.g., he says that if we could clearly answer the question "Similar with respect to what?" we wouldn't need the notion of paradigms, since the answer itself would be a rule. So a difference between an example and a rule could be, for instance, the difference between "Here's a swan, and other swans are similar to it" (an example) and "All swans are white" (a rule). And here we have to distinguish between a rule about swans and a mere fact about swans that so far seems to be true. In any event, Kuhn doesn't think you get enough of those rules/facts to let you dispense with paradigms.
I'm posting further elaborations and questions in the comments thread, and I may also post further passages from Kuhn there, if they become relevant to the discussion (assuming there is a discussion); if not, I'll give them their own separate posts in the hopes that they'll launch their own comment threads.
--Thomas S. Kuhn, "Postscript - 1969" in The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions Second Edition, Enlarged, p. 175.
OK. Start discussing, start posting comments on this, in light of what you read in "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" Except I've got a few points of my own to make, and I've got a specific question in bold, below, if you're wondering where to start.
Minor point: when Kuhn says "employed as models or examples" here, he's treating the words "models" and "examples" as near synonyms, despite his also using the word "model," both later on in this "Postscript" (p. 184) and in the piece "Second Thoughts On Paradigms," in a specific sense as a different element in the constellation - different from "example," that is. I talked about that other use over here, and if you didn't see what I wrote or you want to refresh your memory, you should go look. Not that the words "models" and "examples" are generally synonymous, but in the above passage they modify each other, so that when Kuhn talks about examples he's talking about those examples - which he's now calling "exemplars" - that are used as models (as opposed to examples used as illustrations or for clarification), and by model here he means "an example you try to follow" (rather than, e.g., a useful analogy or simile such as "electric resistance is like the flow of water in pipes," this sort of useful analogy being the other sort of "model" that I've mentioned in the previous two sentences). To confuse things further, in "Second Thoughts on Paradigms," in which he distinguishes between "models" and "exemplars," he uses the verb "model" to say what it is that scientists do with exemplars, and generally throughout his essays when he uses the word "model" in its verb form he's doing exactly this, saying what it is that scientists do with exemplars - e.g., that they model their subsequent puzzle-solutions on paradigms i.e. exemplars, which are concrete puzzle solutions.
Next point: OK, and what's a paradigm in its narrow use as "exemplar"? Well, actually, this is a definition right here. An exemplar is "a concrete puzzle-solution employed as a model or an example." But what about the rest of that sentence?
Crucial point: Kuhn says exemplars "can replace explicit rules." Now this could be confusing. It could be interpreted as saying, "A science can have a set of explicit rules, so a function of an exemplar is to come along and replace some of these rules; therefore, when scientists start employing an exemplar, it replaces their practice of following an explicit rule or rules that they'd formerly employed." But this is very much NOT what Kuhn means. Too bad my time machine is broken, or I'd go back and make him rewrite his sentence. What he actually means is that scientists use exemplars, whereas some philosophers had mistakenly argued that scientists used rules. So what Kuhn is saying is that in understanding what scientists do - how they learn to practice a particular science or subscience, and then how they actually engage in the science - we need to replace the idea that scientists learn and follow rules with the idea that they learn and employ paradigms - "paradigms" in the sense of "exemplars," i.e., concrete puzzle-solutions etc. (What I've just written is a bit simplistic, since Kuhn doesn't actually believe that there are no rules or definitions in science, but rather that some useful rules of thumb come along after you've learned to use the paradigms, and that paradigms are the basic means with which scientists make sense of their definitions.)
This is why Kuhn first began using the term "paradigm": to explain how scientists are taught and what they do, and to work out what it is that scientists within a discipline do share if they don't share rules on how to proceed.
So, Kuhn thinks it's crucial to distinguish between rules and paradigms.
A question for you: What is the difference between a rule and a paradigm (in the sense of "exemplar")? I don't think it's altogether obvious what is meant by "rule" or what the difference is between following a rule and being guided by a model, but I think Kuhn is right to try to make the distinction. And over the next several days I'll be posting some passages from Kuhn that may be useful in this regard. E.g., he says that if we could clearly answer the question "Similar with respect to what?" we wouldn't need the notion of paradigms, since the answer itself would be a rule. So a difference between an example and a rule could be, for instance, the difference between "Here's a swan, and other swans are similar to it" (an example) and "All swans are white" (a rule). And here we have to distinguish between a rule about swans and a mere fact about swans that so far seems to be true. In any event, Kuhn doesn't think you get enough of those rules/facts to let you dispense with paradigms.
I'm posting further elaborations and questions in the comments thread, and I may also post further passages from Kuhn there, if they become relevant to the discussion (assuming there is a discussion); if not, I'll give them their own separate posts in the hopes that they'll launch their own comment threads.
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What I mean, except when I mean something else
Date: 2009-02-18 02:29 pm (UTC)Why did I wait so long?
Date: 2009-02-18 02:31 pm (UTC)Does incommensurability means there are no rulers?
Date: 2009-02-18 02:38 pm (UTC)Re: Does incommensurability means there are no rulers?
Date: 2009-02-20 11:17 am (UTC)this is not to say that "rules" is at all good word for the thing i am trying to describe
Re: Does incommensurability means there are no rulers?
Date: 2009-02-20 08:21 pm (UTC)Maybe this will be useful. Without thinking about it, ask what rules you use, when you go to the kitchen to get some forks, to tell you what the forks are and how they're different from the spoons. Quick, without thinking, what are the rules? Or if there aren't rules, is there an algorithm you apply in telling forks from spoons? A definition? A specified procedure? And don't say "I learned the rules when I first learned to distinguish forks and spoons as a tot, and then forgot the rules but I've internalized them in my unconscious and they're still there." Why assume that there are rules at all? OK, now, if you say, "My use of the word 'fork' must have a limiting geometry." What does that tell us that "I don't use the word 'fork' to mean any old thing" doesn't? Now, "incommensurability" arises when we meet someone who uses "fork" to mean some forks but not all, and some nonforks. But, again, what does it add to our knowledge to say, "He uses different rules for applying the word 'fork,'" or "He's got a differing limiting geometry"? This doesn't mean that we can't talk about the difference, but Kuhn is giving a different kind of answer from "rules," and I'm guessing a different kind of answer from "limiting geometry."
Are paradigms only employed in normal science, or can they moonlight in other occupations?
Date: 2009-02-18 02:42 pm (UTC)Are puzzle-solutions the only exemplars?
Date: 2009-02-18 02:52 pm (UTC)Re: Are puzzle-solutions the only exemplars?
Date: 2009-02-20 11:09 am (UTC)so while as you've stated it it doesn't seem like a "puzzle solution", it could be presented in the form of one, for pedagogic purposes
(but in fact there's possibly something a bit ahistorical about doing this, as the puzzle-solution system of pedagogy may not have been the aristotelian practice -- i have no idea, and anyway the aristotelian "era" lasted more than a millennium, so may have encompassed a whole slew of different teaching fashions...)
Re: Are puzzle-solutions the only exemplars?
Date: 2009-02-22 05:43 pm (UTC)And lots of laughs applying this notion to hot-button controversy words and Superwords*, where part of successful usage is to start a fight over usage.
One reason I want to keep "paradigm" broader than "concrete puzzle solution" is that in using a puzzle solution as a paradigm for solving another puzzle, you also need to use various concrete situations and concrete entities that occur in the first puzzle as models and examples of other situations and entities that appear in the other puzzle. So not only is the puzzle functioning as a paradigm, but so is the situation, and I'd expect that in many puzzle solutions you come upon a problematic situation and first you either ask yourself "what situation does this remind me of?" or you ask yourself, as Planck did in trying to derive a black-body law, "how can I conceive of this situation as being like another situation?" e.g. how to conceive of a situation that resembles Boltzmann's molecules in a box and how to conceive of "resonators" as being enough like molecules so that he can divide their energy spectrum into "cells" just as Boltzmann did with the kinetic energy of molecules and calculate probability distributions in a manner that's similar to how Boltzmann calculated probability distributions for his "molecules." And then in the Aristotelian situation you're not solving a "puzzle" but just creating a "taxonomy" of what you want to consider "motion." But the same mechanism - coming up with relevant similarities, using something as a model or an example for something else - is at work for all.
*For any lurker who comes upon this sentence, I can't link to the chapters in my book that talk about Superwords, since the chapters aren't online, but if you go to this ilX thread and search for "superword" you'll find stuff that's relevant.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-18 07:34 pm (UTC)rules and paradigms
Date: 2009-02-19 05:22 pm (UTC)when you first started discussing exemplars -- and were a bit down on the word as expressive language -- i was wondering how much its usefulness was in pointing towards the phrase "exemplary behaviour": how much did it intend to suggest that the role (in science) of an exemplar is the moulding of scientific behaviour -- not least, making certain leaps of intuition or connection or association second nature in the right contexts (and then finding out by exploration what contexts turned out to be "right" in this, or similar senses)
(if we go back to my analogy with board games, there's clearly a distinction between the rules of chess -- which ensure it's chess rather than checkers -- and the developments of tactics and strategy, which plainly fall into categories and types that you could call "rules", or at least rules of thumb, in respect of winning; but are obviously a very different type of rule
Re: rules and paradigms
Date: 2009-02-19 07:27 pm (UTC)Question about your musical analogy (and I took piano for several years as a tyke but barely remember doing any repetitive finger exercises; probably didn't practice enough): are you learning to play the exact same notes, or are you learning (also) to play similar but not identical notes that nonetheless have a very similar effect? I'd think a better analogy might be transposing a melody from one mode to another (such as major to minor), where not only the notes but the melody itself will be a bit different but will nonetheless be recognizably the same!
Are there rules of harmony? I'd think that the rule of harmony is "what you can get away with in certain circumstances," understanding that that doesn't give you carte blanche but rather it is more accurate to say "Do harmonies that more-or-less have these features" than to say "these are the rules that encompass all allowable uses of harmony in these circumstances." I don't know enough about harmony to know if what I just said is right, but a good test of whether we're dealing with rules or with paradigms might be which supersedes the other in borderline circumstances. (What Kuhn would say about rules is that you have to worry about whether you've drawn them too broadly or too narrowly, whereas that's not even a problem with paradigms, since you use them however you use them. But this doesn't mean you can't use them wrong, which is one reason people like to resort to rules.)
Re: rules and paradigms
Date: 2009-02-20 10:45 am (UTC)i think you're right here -- i didn't really get set them until towards the very end of my piano lessons (only a few months before i left school and no longer had lessons), and was remiss myself in actually doing them; i suspect "modern kids" are let off them somewhat, as they are repetitive and off-putting... BUT my sense now is that they are kind of key to getting the necessary toolkit of small moves into your muscle-memory (and yes, it's a lot more than just scales, which are as much about finger-strengthening as anything; transposition exercises, all kinds of chord and arpeggio exercises)... the effect is to free up your brain from having to puzzle out where to put yr fingers, so you can concentrate on more "musical" elements of expression, and yr fingers go to the right places of their own accord
rules of harmony
very VERY roughly speaking, the baroque-classical period (c.1650-1800) was one where harmony was taught as if it followed very strict rules (and these didn't change much); within this time, there were playful or experimental composers, though they were in a minority really -- haydn probably the best-known -- who used this strictness as a field to play games with expectations; in the romantic era, which begins with beethoven, your "what you can get away with" becomes more the general sensibility -- though my guess is that the rules of the earlier period were still taught as if they were rules (that had formerly applied) and that you couldn't be an effective romantic until you'd internalised them... this began to break down in the second half of the 19th century, when for example wagner, who was often mocked by enemies for "not knowing the rules properly" very evidently established himself as a figure to admire and imitate
in the books i learnt how to harmonise from (the ones i still have) the manual on counterpoint -- which is a baroque discipline -- explicit refers to the rules in chapter headings; whereas the book on chordal harmonisation refers to them as "'rules'", as if to disavow the term, and states in the introduction that treating them as rules makes for arid music... the latter was a 1960s publication; the former first published in the 1930s
Re: rules and paradigms
Date: 2009-02-20 12:42 am (UTC)It's the issue of how one divides up the bodies that orbit the sun: planets, minor planets, asteroids, comets, satellites, etc. Interestingly, nothing of deep significance rides on the answer, since a planet's tax rate doesn't increase or decrease depending upon whether it's a major planet or a minor planet, so really what astronomy is coming up with is conventions as to how to talk to one another. There's really no reasons we can't call moons a special type of planet, or decide that earth, Venus, Mercury, and Mars should be in a different category from the big gas giants farther out. But anyway, what happened with Pluto was that we were considering it a planet and then astronomers realized that it seemed really to be a Kuiper Belt object and that a bunch of other planets were likely to be discovered soon, so many that the number might become unwieldy, and classifying Pluto with the Kuiper belt objects and as a minor planet made the most sense. What I think happened was that they decided that Pluto was more like those other objects (including the two new planets that had just been discovered) than it was like the inner eight planets, and on the basis of this similarity they decided, "OK, Pluto is a minor planet." But they then had to come up with a definition - a rule - for what to call a minor planet and how to distinguish it from a major planet, so ex post facto they come up with a new rule for determining what's a major planet, a rule that seems pretty damn arbitrary to me, and whose only purpose was to eliminate Pluto and the two new planets farther out from the category "major planet." But my point here would be that the reason for deciding not to call Pluto a major planet had nothing to do with the rule but with the perceived similarity to other Kuiper Belt objects. It wasn't the rule that made astronomers decide not to call Pluto a planet, but vice versa: the "rule" was not determinate.
Re: rules and paradigms
Date: 2009-02-20 10:52 am (UTC)basically the characters are trying to establish a law (or laws) for the equation of relationship between edges, faces and vertices, and get into all kinds of fights and exasperation, as more and more peculiar-shaped objects are introduced into play, as examples and counter-examples...
it's called "proofs and refutations" and i TOTALLY recommend it, it's one of my favourite books
Re: rules and paradigms
Date: 2009-02-20 07:14 am (UTC)So the question for you, while you're thinking like Kuhn, is: just what is the distinction you're drawing here between a rule and a paradigm? What is it that rules have that paradigms lack, and/or vice versa? What do rules do that paradigms don't do, and/or vice versa? Each gives you an idea how to proceed, but nonetheless, you as a Kuhnian insist that there's a critical difference in procedure, which is why in certain circumstances you use the words "paradigm" and "exemplar" rather than the word "rule."
A clue might be found in the passage I quoted up top: "the concrete puzzle-solutions which, employed as models or examples, can replace explicit rules as a basis for the solution of the remaining puzzles of normal science."
So, are you, while thinking like Kuhn, saying that paradigms, unlike rules, have elements that can't be put into words? (I'd recommend we be pragmatic about this, since, as I posted in the last couple of weeks, rules also have aspects that can't be put into words; but you could say that there's a great difference between rules and paradigms in how much can be put into words.)
Re: rules and paradigms
Date: 2009-02-20 10:59 am (UTC)(of course PART of what exercises do is help players to imagine moves -- some way ahead -- in their heads; ie they don't have to scamper off to the next room and get out their little travelling chess-set... indeed, this is very likely AGAINST TOURNAMENT RULES)
so in this sense the distinction between paradigms and rules is that the paradigm is the exercise (whereas the rules are the rules the exercise establishes, which may or may entirely accord with the rules of chess) (the rules of chess start the game at the beginning; the rules of endgame exercises don't, obviously)
Re: rules and paradigms
Date: 2009-02-20 07:21 pm (UTC)I don't understand the phrase "the rules the exercise establishes." If you're Kuhn, is this the phrase you use? You (i.e., Kuhn) are saying that paradigms replace - they don't establish - explicit rules, by which you mean that, contrary to what positivist philosophers say, scientists don't solve their puzzles by applying rules but instead model their solutions on paradigms. So you - in your role as Kuhn - are asking yourself the question: "Suppose I'm trying to explain the concept 'paradigm' to my students. If I use chess as my model, will this help them to understand or will it hurt them? Well, since I, Thomas Kuhn [as portrayed by the eminent thespian Mark Sinker], think it's absolutely crucial to distinguish between rules and paradigms, and between following a rule on the one hand and modeling one's behavior on a paradigm on the other, I have to decide if, at the end of particular chess games, chess players model their behavior on paradigms or whether they employ rules instead. If the former, then chess indeed will be a good example to show to my students; if the latter, it will not be, since it won't be an example of someone modeling his chess play on a paradigm; instead, it will be an example of someone following rules."
So, the question I pose to you, Thomas Sinker Kuhn, is this: at the end of the chess-game, is the player applying rules (no matter how he learned them) - which you've just said in your previous post that he is, unless either you misspoke or I misheard - or instead is he modeling his play on paradigms? Now, however you answer that question, I, Frank Kogan, wanting to understand the ideas of you, Thomas S. Kuhn, would also like you to explain what the distinction is you're drawing between paradigms and rules, and why you think it's important to draw such a distinction?
[You may not be ready to answer the last part of the question, or even earlier parts, but these are questions you should be aiming at being able to answer.]
If the exercises establish rules, wouldn't you say, Thomas Kuhn, as you've said in other circumstances, that once the rules are learned we have no need any longer of the exercises, since once you know the rules you can apply them directly? But then of course, who needed the exercises in the first place? A novice chess player can simply learn the endgame rules.
ooops no
Date: 2009-02-21 10:28 am (UTC)so "rules" in this case are something like "instructions for performing the exercise correctly" -- with the belief that performed most correctly, the exercise is most useful in inculcating chessmaster-like thinking
using the same terminology, "established rules" in the case of scientific puzzle-solutions possibly take the form of instructions which begin "assume for the sake of this exercise, that [x] always takes the value [y]"; they are initial conditions to ensure that the puzzle-solution doesn't sputter off in some distractive and (at this point) unhelpful direction <--- i don't think it's wrong to think of THESE as rules (or the rules of chess as rules), but maybe a better term is initial conditions... the initial conditions of chess are what tell us we're playing chess instead of halma (or some personalised chess-halma hybrid); the initial conditions of any given exercise are apllied during that exercise then discarded and forgotten
Re: ooops no
Date: 2009-02-22 07:08 am (UTC)So what?
So far, I don't see where your chess example is helping to answer the basic question that I am posing, maybe because I assumed something was clear when I asked the question that may not have been clear (though it seems to me I've made it very clear in these comments). The question as I posed it is: What is the difference between a rule and a paradigm (in the sense of "exemplar")? Now I will rewrite the question: Kuhn is drawing a distinction between rules and paradigms, saying that the latter do things that the former don't and can't do. So (a) what does KUHN think a rule is (or does) (or what particular type of rule is he thinking of), (b) what does KUHN think a paradigm is (or does), (c) what does KUHN think the distinction between the two is, and (d) just why is it that Kuhn thinks that scientists proceed by way of paradigms rather than rules?
A problem here is that "rule" is a flexible and contested term, and Kuhn doesn't realize he has to direct us towards how in this instance he's using the term. Another problem is I haven't posted a lot that he says about rules. Nonetheless, I want you to take the question as I'm posing it as your guide when you try to answer. If there isn't an element of "paradigms in effect, rules not in effect" in your answer, then you can take that as an indication that you haven't yet "gotten" Kuhn. (And does your chess example help to take you to such an answer? If not, then the chess example isn't helping you.)
Re: rules and paradigms
Date: 2009-02-20 07:45 pm (UTC)Now, if we want to, we can call "force equals mass times acceleration" a rule, and say that the paradigms have taught her how to apply the rule (which in some instances involves finding different mathematical forms for "force equals mass times accelaration"). But the paradigms didn't teach her the rule, "force times acceleration," or establish it - that rule was given her dogmatically in the text, and she could recite it back before she had a clue how to use it or what it meant. The paradigms have taught her something else. They have taught her either (i) rules for how to apply "force equals mass times acceleration" in various different circumstances or (ii) to see how to apply "force equals mass times acceleration." Now, pretending you're Kuhn, you're saying that ii is right and i is wrong, and I'm asking you to explain to your students or readers just what the distinction is between i and ii and why you think it's an important distinction. So, i is _______, ii is _______, the difference between i and ii is _______, and it's important that we recognize the distinction between i and ii because _______. Again, since you haven't read a shitload of Kuhn you may not have an answer at hand. But I'd say that if your musical or chess examples are helping you answer the question then stick with them, but if they're not, set them aside. But also, if you're Kuhn, it may be a specific sort of rule that you're declaring as inapplicable and trying to take down. I think the buzzword in philosophy is "correspondence rules," though I haven't done the philosophical reading. But again, the difference is between having a rule that tells you unerringly when something is similar to or the same as something else, on one hand, and seeing something as similar to or the same as something else, on the one hand.
Re: rules and paradigms
Date: 2009-02-21 10:44 am (UTC)rule 1: once you have identified the force, refer to it (in any algebraic equations that arise) as F (F1, F2 etc, if there are more than one); refer to the mass as m (m, m2 etc); call acceleration a (a1 etc)
these are habits of algebraic hygiene which will (it is hoped) enhance clarity speed and communication (with others and indeed with self in two days time) -- all of which will surely help the student's general development -- but none of these habits in themselves help her get to grips with the specific "law" at issue (viz F=ma)
if the paradigm is the puzzle-solution (or class of puzzle solutions), the "rules" in this instance would be initial conditions of advisory practice -- possibly particular to specific teachers ("only write on one side of the paper") -- which would not necessarily even carry over to the next puzzle (or semester, or professor)
Re: rules and paradigms
Date: 2009-02-22 08:13 am (UTC)They have taught her either (i) rules for how to apply "force equals mass times acceleration" in various different circumstances or (ii) to see how to apply "force equals mass times acceleration." Now, pretending you're Kuhn, you're saying that ii is right and i is wrong, and I'm asking you to explain to your students or readers just what the distinction is between i and ii and why you think it's an important distinction. So, i is _______, ii is _______, the difference between i and ii is _______, and it's important that we recognize the distinction between i and ii because _______.
"i is _______" means "the rules for applying f = ma are _______" (remember, this is the idea that Kuhn is refuting, and it doesn't seem to me he is refuting "refer to force as f" or "apply this formula" (though it may just be that he's refuting the idea that how to apply f = ma takes care of itself nonproblematically). Again, what do you think the idea is that Kuhn is refuting? "I don't know yet" is a legitimate answer, but remember, Kuhn thinks it is necessary to counter the idea that scientists proceed by following rules with the idea that, no, scientists don't proceed by following rules but by modeling themselves on paradigms. So the first idea ("scientists proceed by following rules") must seem at least plausible. No one thinks that Bernoulli worked out the speed of efflux because he remembered to write on only one side of the paper or wrote down the particular terms that he was instructed to write down. It must be an idea compelling enough that Kuhn thinks he needs to counter it.
"ii is _______." So what Kuhn say it is to see how to apply f = ma?
"the difference between i and ii is _______." So Kuhn would say that the difference between following rules that tell you how to apply f = ma, on the one hand, and seeing how to apply f = ma, on the other, is _______. (Another way of asking this: What would Kuhn say the difference is between seeing resemblance and following a rule?)
"it's important that we recognize the distinction between i and ii because _______." E.g., because if we don't recognize the distinction, then _______.
Re: rules and paradigms
Date: 2009-02-20 07:42 am (UTC)Let's say strategy and tactics do have "rules," which are along the lines of "control the middle of the board." But they also have "paradigms," which are concrete ways of controlling the middle of the board that you've used or observed in previous matches and that you are using as your model(s) for controlling the board in the particular match you are engaged in. And it is through learning to employ these paradigms that you learn not just how to control the middle of the board, but what controlling the middle of the board really consists of in chess. So, a paradigm tells you what controlling the middle of the board is. Controlling the middle of the board is doing something similar to what you did some of the other times you or someone else controlled the middle of the board. So again, you're relying not on rules but on doing something in situation D that is similar but not identical to what was done in similar but not identical situation A. So maybe, if you're Kuhn, a rule tells you what to do in situation A, another rule tells you what to do in situation B, and a third tells you what to do in situation C, but none of these are of any help in new situation D, for which, being a new situation, there hasn't been a rule developed. However, a paradigm can guide you in new situation D, if you are able to see D as significantly similar to A, B, or C. (But if this is what Kuhn would say, isn't he being really limited in his use of the word "rule"?) Somewhere in here there is the ability to perceive a situation as like another but there isn't a set of rules that tells you how to do this.
meta-wail
Date: 2009-02-22 12:32 pm (UTC)OR (B) continuing to post as above, in a obviously half-distracted unsatisfactory way as a result, largely, of skim-reading in snatched moments, to at least ensure that (i) someone other than you is here AT ALL and (ii) i am at least in a small sense digging away at things to keep my mind attached to your project as it unfolds... i am after all now weeks behind with the original homework, let alone any new development about to go up
my fear is that (B), my usual ticcy habit, actually seriously cuts against (A): that i very much use small diversionary discussions as a tactic to avoid declaring myself on the germane questions, but that at the same time i use the scale of (A) to enlarge the idea of (A) itself -- there's always a reason to do something urgent but unrelated (like haha earn a living) rather than get down and Master the Entire Topic in One Go and Amaze the World, and meanwhile, the more i know, the large the Entire Topic somehow gets
(normal non-wailing service will now be resumed)
Re: meta-wail
Date: 2009-02-22 04:17 pm (UTC)And the second question is: do I risk losing my reader(s) by insisting that he/they answer the questions that I pose? The answer is "Yes," because I've tried the other way and it doesn't work. That is, if I let people pay me to do stuff other than ask my questions, then they'll only pay me to do stuff other than ask my questions (with occasional exceptions). If I answer other people's questions and engage in their conversations in the hopes that they'll eventually come 'round to my questions and conversations, they almost never come around. (Well, obviously this only pertains to some questions I ask, not all: e.g., "what's the first record you bought and what was going on in your life when you bought it?" gets plenty of answers, "draw a social map of your high school" gets a lot of interesting responses but many of them don't contain the social map I asked for, and if I want a reply to "Why do visceral responses to music run along class lines?" well, lots of luck on that one.)
(And none of this means other people's questions and convos might not be valuable in their own right, obviously, just as I'm broader and smarter for having written some of the stuff I got paid to write.)
But the point of my asking the particular question I'm asking in this thread is to help you focus your attention, which can help cut the question down to size. I'm going to pose a strategy (C) for you: rather than giving me "half-distracted unsatisfactory" responses that go off at an odd angle from the question I'm asking, you should give me half-distracted unsatisfactory responses that directly address the question, and when I give you a format for your reply, then follow the format.
But I think that what's going on might be this: I ask the question, you go to what legitimately can be considered paradigms, that is, "How would we answer this question in geometry? How would we answer this question in relation to music? How would we answer this question in relation to chess?" The problem is that so far they're not working as paradigms, since you've so far failed to find a match between my question and your examples, without your necessarily being aware of this, and this is why I keep continually re-asking the question. Another way of putting this is that you continually fail to find a starting point in your examples that matches the starting point of my question.
Re: meta-wail
Date: 2009-02-22 04:20 pm (UTC)(a) What might these rules or type(s) of rule be that Kuhn thinks other people think are in effect but he thinks are not?
(b) What are paradigms - these devices that Kuhn thinks accomplish what other people attribute to rules?
(c) What's the difference between following a rule on the one hand and modeling your solution on a paradigm on the other?
(d) Why does Kuhn think it's so important to distinguish between following a rule and being guided by a paradigm? Even though this might be the hardest question to answer off the bat, given the lack of info I've exposed you to so far, it's worth taking a shot at because it leads back to question (a). That is, Kuhn thinks that following a "rule" would limit us and fail in some way that being guided by a "paradigm" would not.
To give an example that might help with (d), and maybe (a), think of a "rule" - not anything you can call a "rule," just the sort of rule Kuhn is concerned with here - as being analogous to a definition. So, say that part of your definition of "swan" is "All swans are white." Now, suppose you come upon an animal that seems to be a swan but is black. Now, by definition, it's not a swan and the matter is settled. But by similarity it might be a swan, and that can be a subject for further study. Now, Kuhn would think that the latter - at least in some circumstances - is more functional than the former. Why might he think so?